Former French President criticizes Macron for Algeria infatuation
“We risk losing everything! We will win Algeria’s trust but we will lose that of Morocco,” thus spoke former French President Nicolas Sarkozy deploring the pro-Algeria bias of the current French head of state Emmanuel Macron.
In an interview with Le Figaro, Sarkozy lambasted Macron for his shortsighted Maghreb foreign policy in which he sought in vain Algeria’s friendship at the cost of undermining ties with Paris’s longstanding partner in the region: Rabat.
The interview, in which Sarkozy spoke of an impossible rapprochement with Algiers, was published on the occasion of the release of Sarkozy’s book Le Temps des Tempêtes (the era of storms).
His call for remedying ties with Rabat echoes that of 94 members of the French parliaments who urged Macron to make a stand in favor of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara, following the example of the US, Israel, Spain, Germany and other European, African and Arab countries.
“Let’s not try to build an artificial friendship with Algerian leaders who systematically use France as a scapegoat to mask their own failures and legitimacy deficit. They will always reject it, ” warned Sarkozy.
Algerian leaders are desperate to distract attention from the failure in which they enmeshed their country by “systematically accusing France,” he said.
Recently, the Algerian regime reintroduced stanzas very hostile to France in its national anthem and the Algerian news agency APS has published diatribes accusing France of hostility.
President Tebboune hosted Macron earlier this year and the French Prime Minister led a large cabinet and private sector delegation signing mostly MoUs with no concrete deals.
An announced visit to France by Tebboune was pushed back on multiple occasions as Macron’s administration struggles to realize the unrequited relationship it is building with Algeria.
Meanwhile, Politicians turning in Macron’s orbit have shown activism against Morocco in the media and in the EU institutions ringing the alarm bell among Morocco’s friends in the French political class who deplore Paris’s ambiguous stand on the Sahara issue.
